


The Reeducation of Victor Creed

by betaadamantium



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-07
Updated: 2012-06-20
Packaged: 2017-11-04 23:53:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/399610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betaadamantium/pseuds/betaadamantium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the death of Birdy, Victor Creed is losing control of his bloodlust and comes under the care of the X-Men, ostensibly for rehabilitation. When he's injured during a fight with Logan he becomes a different man, maybe even a good man, but what about all the blood he's shed?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is based in part on the comics circa 1993 when Birdy died and Creed lost control of his bloodlusts, setting up a trap for the X-Men so that he could get access to Xavier, as only a very strong telepath could control the pain brought on by his feral rages. As I found it rather skeevy for Creed's main proponent to be a teenager (Tabitha "Boomer" Smith in the comics), I decided to create a new character to explore his rehabilitation.
> 
> Jean is not in this fic, I've reached ahead to pull on the Emma/Scott pairing (I don't care for Jean as a character, she's ... boring). Let's just say she's died for the last time and is off doing whatever. Y'know, before Marvel brings her back again.
> 
> It'll be set in modern day rather than the 1990s as the comics were. Holy cheese-fest otherwise. 
> 
> Last thing: Victor Creed is about the closest you can get to a wild animal with sentience, which means his violent outbursts and memories are pretty graphic.

The first indication something was wrong when Rae arrived back at the mansion from visiting family was the sort of hushed feeling, like someone had died and they were afraid to speak for fear of upsetting the ghost. Everyone seemed to be on edge, jumping at the slightest things; Hank had nearly gone through the roof when she walked into the kitchen the moment she got back, looking for a jolt of caffeine in the form of Mountain Dew.

"What the hell is going on?" she asked, slinging her bag off of her shoulder to thump at her feet. "You look like a scared cat, fur notwithstanding."

Hank pressed a hand to his chest as if that would slow down his heart rate, his face slightly pink with embarrassment. "You startled me is all." He gave her a peck on the cheek. "How was your journey home, my little librarian?"

"Cold." Rae grinned. "I forget sometimes how to dress when I go back, since summers in Alaska are more like fall here in New York. I end up coming back here with warmer clothing than what I packed to go back." She knew he'd deflected the answer to her question but let it go, it was entirely possible he was just nervous from working on the Legacy Virus, a project that always put him on edge. "Did I miss anything fun while I was gone?"

Had she not known him well she wouldn't have noticed the tick in his jaw that had appeared when she asked. "Just the usual mutant hijinks, Tabitha nearly blew up the Danger Room again."

"Much like every day she's in there." There was a reason that girl's codename was Boom-Boom. "As long as she doesn't hurt my library I find I'm not too concerned." A huge yawn threatened to crack her jaw, her hand automatically coming up to cover her mouth. "Holy crap, my body's telling me it's still on Alaska Standard Time, just like it was telling me it was still on Eastern time when I got to Hoonah. Gonna have to stay up all night just to get things right."

"Hence the caffeine."

She saluted him with the distinctive yellow-green plastic bottle. "Indeed. I'm gonna get settled back in, do some laundry. See you around?"

Hank waved a furry paw. "But of course. Come drag me out of my lab for dinner, would you?"

"Definitely." Rae stooped to pick up her bag again and left the kitchen, noting once again the weird silence and trying to chalk it up to summer vacation. The kids who had families to visit were doing so and likely some of the adults had taken off, too; she knew Scott and Emma were off somewhere beachy, Storm was in Kenya doing the weather goddess thing, and Logan was off doing God only knew what. Rogue and Remy had to be out doing something otherwise their raised voices would be filling the hallways with laughter and curses.

Down a flight of stairs she came to the laundry room with its industrial-sized machines in a neat row, several of them humming along. Her bag was crammed full, the zipper sticking a bit when she tried to open it so that the items inside burst out like stuffing from a wounded teddy bear when she finally got it undone. As she'd told Hank she'd returned to the mansion with more clothing than she'd left with, all of which now needed to be washed, so she busied herself with the mundane task of sorting lights and darks, putting in detergent and fabric softener. The one good thing about having laundry facilities among friends was you didn't have to worry that complete strangers were going to steal your stuff (except for the occasional lost panties which got blamed on the sock monster).

The caffeine she'd drunk was having its intended effect, buoying her for long enough that she actually felt like heading down to the Danger Room for a quick session. She stopped off at her room to change into workout clothing, loose pants she'd chopped off at the knee, a tanktop under a battered Captain America T-shirt, and sneakers; were she going for a full-on session she'd have worn her X-Men uniform, but she wouldn't need that for kickboxing. With her hair already in its customary braid she was ready.

Remy and Rogue were just coming out of the Danger Room when she made her way into the bowels of the mansion. They were bickering as usual, sounding more and more like an old married couple every time she heard them; both were sweaty and Remy's trademark trenchcoat looked a little worse for wear. This time the argument was over Remy trying to protect Rogue during their simulation which was ridiculous, really, when one remembered that Rogue was nigh-invincible and could hit with the force of a Mack truck. Male chivalry, when it popped up, was extremely hard to fight past, and it was even worse when said chivalrous male was in love.

Thankfully they stopped sniping when they saw Rae. "How was home?" Rogue asked, her face lighting up when she saw her friend. They hugged briefly, Rae protected by Rogue's full-body uniform and gloves. "Did ya miss us?"

"Not the arguing," Rae replied, going on tiptoe to kiss Remy on the cheek. "And home was good, I went fishing with my dad and then got dragged out to my grandma's place to help her get ready for the solstice." She smiled, remembering the preparations; for all her grandmother insisted she was a good Orthodox Christian, she clung to the old ways and pulled Rae after her. Both women felt very strongly about not losing their heritage.

"You should come up with me sometime, you two, it's really beautiful there."

The two Southerners shivered, giving each other pained looks. "It be too cold up dere for the likes o' us, _chere_ ," Remy replied. "How 'bout ya jus' take some pictures an' we'll look at 'em?"

Rae snorted. "Whatever, Cajun. Did you guys leave the Danger Room intact or am I gonna have to find someplace else to exhaust myself?" There was always the gym down the hall, if it came down to it.

The two of them exchanged glances, trying to be surreptitious about it and failing when it took more than a couple seconds.  
  
"Okay, seriously, what the hell is going on?" She shared her glare equally between them, arms crossing over her chest. "I came home and startled Hank in the kitchen, I swear I thought he was going to leap up and catch himself on the ceiling beams. Sneaking up on him is almost as hard as sneaking up on Logan and he gave me some line to put me off. Now." Rae glared harder. "What. Is going. On?"

Another glance between them before Rogue sighed. "She's gonna find out sooner or later," she said to Remy.

The Cajun nodded, his eyes flaring a deeper red for a moment. "We had some, uh, excitement while you were gone."

"Nothing new there, half the time I go home and someone's trying to destroy downtown Manhattan. The way Hank reacted makes me think you've got something nasty locked up down here."

Rogue gave a nervous little laugh. "Ya ain't far off there, sugah. C'mon, easier just to show ya." She gestured for Rae to follow, Remy bringing up the rear of their little group. Rogue led them down the hallway towards the holding cells, tension keeping her back ramrod straight instead of her usual loose gait, and Rae quickly saw the reason for it.

At first she wasn't sure what she was looking at, just a large body with long, unruly blonde hair, the captive's arm covering his face where he lay on his back on the floor. Something niggled at the back of her mind, some familiarity that flared to fearful life when a low, warning growl came from the captive.

"You punks come to gawk?" the low, angry voice said.

 _"Victor Creed?"_ Rae took an involuntary step backwards when the hulk of a man unfolded himself to sit up, dark feral eyes glaring at them. "We've got Victor Creed locked up in our basement? And none of you are dead yet?"

Creed chuckled, a wicked, deadly sound. "Not fer lack o' tryin', frail. Care to step inside here so we can remedy that?"

"Shut up, _chien_ ," Remy replied.

"I'm more of a cat, I think."  
  
Rogue turned her back on the prisoner with an exasperated huff. "Don't encourage 'im, Remy." She looked at Rae. "He killed a whole bunch o' people, worse 'n usual, an' one o' his ol' Team X buddies came along to ask for our help in catchin' him. Couldn't 'xactly say no, knowin' what might happen if'n we let him go loose."  
  
Rae nodded. "Yeah, not like he hasn't already spilled enough blood." Some part of her wanted to look at the feral mutant that was staring at her, to meet his eyes; she knew he was doing it to get a reaction out of her and she hated that it was working. "How'd he end up here, though?"  
  
The Southerners looked a bit sheepish. "He set up a trap for us in Japan an' we fell in," Rogue explained, "an' then he came here to see if Charles could help him. He said he needed a telepath to calm the bloodlust."  
  
"So what, we're just gonna keep him here?"  
  
"Xavier wants to rehabilitate him," Remy replied, his voice and body language clearly stating how he felt about that.  
  
"Fat lot o' good that's gonna do with a guy who's been killin' longer 'n any of us has been alive," Rogue agreed. "But ya know how Charles, is, Remy. And ya know we all got the potential for darkness in us, waitin' for the right moment t' come out an' get us, twist us up into somethin' we never thought we'd be."  
  
The Cajun looked away, knowing exactly what she was speaking of, the very thing that still put distance between he and the rest of the X-Men; his affiliation with Sinister and the Marauders that led to the slaughter of Morlocks was something he'd kept from his teammates for a very long time.  
  
Rae was silent for a moment as she thought about it, putting pieces of the puzzle together. "Charles helped Logan get himself back together, helped him to work past the berserker rages and the bloodlust. If Logan hasn't entirely regained himself he's still made great strides towards maintaining his humanity."  
  
"Only difference, frail," Creed answered for himself, "is that Logan wants to be a man. Silly little Wolverine runnin' around like he ain't an animal."  
  
"So there's nothing in you that wants to be better?" Rae took back the step she'd taken away, coming within a couple feet of the phased disruption forcefield keeping him in, necessary for keeping in a superhuman who could likely benchpress Volkswagens. His eyes followed her, never wavering. "You came here to get Xavier to help you."  
  
He growled at her, baring long, sharp incisors.  
  
Rae snorted. "I've seen Logan's teeth, sparky, yours don't impress me."  
  
"I don't think ya should taunt 'im, sugah," Rogue said quietly. She touched Remy's arm. "We should get goin', I'm starvin' and I'm sure Rae'd like to get on with her workout."  
  
"Will ya be okay here, _chere_?" he asked Rae, looking between her and Creed.  
  
She nodded. "Yeah, sweetie, I'll be fine. You guys go on." She shooed them away, watching them go before her eyes drifted back to Creed's. "You didn't answer my question."  
  
"I came here to kill him."  
  
Her eyes went wide. "Um. What? How does that even make sense?"  
  
He growled at her again, this time in frustration. "Ya gonna talk me to death, frail?" he asked, shifting so that he was lying down again. The cell he was in was sparse, with no bed, merely a pallet on the floor with some blankets and pillows. He was afforded a little privacy with a screen hiding the toilet but other than that the cell was bare, the same cold, hard silver material the rest of the subbasement was made out of. "'Cause I ain't exactly interested."  
  
"No wonder Logan thinks you're worthless."  
  
Creed's mouth curved into a slow smile. "Oh, you don't think that," he practically purred. "I can smell the lie on ya **,** makes yer scent go all sour. Ya don't think I'm beyond saving."  
  
Rae's eyes narrowed. She'd forgotten that he had the same enhanced sense of smell that Logan did, allowing them to act as lie detectors, and she didn't like that he could read her that way. "I've been known to be wrong before, Sabretooth, just because I believe in the intrinsic goodness in people doesn't mean you're a good person."  
  
"Yer right, but ya still wanna believe." He chuckled. "It's kinda cute. Mostly pathetic, but kinda cute. All you girls are the same, ya see a bad boy and ya think ya can turn him into a good boy, all they need is some lovin'. So whaddaya say, frail, wanna come in here and see if yer good enough to change me? Maybe a good fuck is all I need."  
  
His words shouldn't have been so shocking, she knew what kind of man he was, knew the kinds of things he'd done and was fully capable of, but that didn't prepare her for hearing it first hand. "You wouldn't be able to get it up anyway, Creed. I'm not your type, I'm not bleeding out on the floor."  
  
"Yer my type, little one, ya got a pulse an' everything. An' ya look a lot like one o' Logan's women I killed way back when, pretty squaw just like you."  
  
The racial slur slid right on past in light of the rest of what he was saying. She knew she shouldn't be baiting him, shouldn't be trying to provoke a reaction out of him. Some part of her was testing to see if there really was something worth saving, something that could be redeemed so that he wouldn't need to be put down like a dog; that's what the outcome would be when Logan came back and discovered who they were housing. She cringed to think of that, of the bloodshed that would ensue.  
  
With an angry, frustrated sigh, she turned on her heel and headed back down the hall to the Danger Room.  
  
"Whatsamatter, frail?" he called after her. "Ya bothered knowin' I'm down here, thinkin' about killin' all yer friends and family?"  
  
The doors slid shut behind her and cut off anything else he may have said. Rae blew out a breath of relief and realized she was shaking from anger and fear, all reactions to both Creed's words and presence. She trusted that Xavier knew what he was doing, that the security measures in place would keep him there, but even with all the trust in the world it was terrifying to know that a self-proclaimed serial killer was lurking almost literally beneath your bed.  
  
Her eyes closed as she came to a stop near the center of the room, drawing breath in through her nose and out through her mouth, just like Logan had taught her. She forced herself to concentrate on that physical act, counting the seconds between breaths, her heart slowing down with each passing moment until she opened her eyes and found she wasn't shaking anymore.  
  
"Computer," she called out, "initiate program Logan gamma, level two, safety on. Add in Raina mix, track two." After years of watching Star Trek she still half-expected a response from a smooth female voice but here there was nothing, just compliance.   
  
The Danger Room dissolved from its familiar silver curves to a small dojo. In the middle of the floor were mats designed to break falls, the floor around that bare, with various weapons and _kanji_ scrolls decorating the walls; it was supposed to be a fair replica of a dojo Logan had studied in once upon a time, down to the cranky _sensei_ who seemed to take delight in watching his students make fools of themselves. With her own _sensei_ still a few days away from coming home (and in no condition to train with her anyway), she called up the first holopponent, bending to remove shoes and socks which she placed carefully aside before flopping down onto the floor to wrap her feet and hands with tape.  
  
A few quick stretches later and she felt limber enough to bounce back up and take on her holopponent, a man her own size with proportionate skill, someone she couldn't beat or be defeated by easily. For a time she lost herself in the back and forth movement, hands and feet striking quickly, circling and weaving looking for openings, while music played over the system to help her find her rhythm. She'd always worked better with music in all aspects of her life, from schoolwork to cleaning to fighting, even on to more intimate things, each one having its own type of music.  
  
Here it was that somewhat obnoxious genre of rap/rock that most people said they hated but secretly listened to on their ipods. Linkin Park predominated on her fight mix for its aggressive, fast words and music, lending itself to what she was currently doing.  
  
The AI was excellent, responding perfectly to her attacks like a real person would, and the contact between bodies was just as realistic. Her fist took him in the jaw and rocked his head back, following up with a kick to the shoulder before she danced back, fists held up to protect her head from blows as he advanced on her. Just like fighting a real person she found she could watch the fighting style, find openings in his form and technique, then use those against him: he favored his left side, feinting to the right and attacking from the left to keep it protected.  
  
When he aimed a left cross at her she grabbed his arm as it went past where her head had been, twisting it up behind him and bringing her knee up into his now-unprotected left side. He went down like a sack of bricks and stayed there, weirdly silent for what she'd just done to him, but he hadn't been programmed to that extent.  
  
"Computer, remove level two holopponent, bring up level three. Advance Raina mix to track six." The Danger Room did its thing and suddenly she was facing a woman a little bigger than her, closer to Ororo in height and not all that dissimilar in coloring; she could have been the Windrider's twin save for the difference in hair and eye color. Rae wasted no time in attacking as Metallica's "Fuel" blasted over the sound system and she matched her speed with the fast pace of the song, suddenly feeling the need to be more aggressive. The holopponent reacted accordingly, giving as good as it got, landing almost twice as many blows as level two. One in particular, a kick that clipped her ear, made her see stars enough that she dropped to one knee on the mat, breathing hard and trying not to puke.  
  
"Halt!" she shouted. The holopponent went still, freezing in mid-lunge while Rae gagged on hands and knees. She stumbled to her feet then out the door, across the hallway to the bathroom where she lost what she'd eaten for lunch; as a child she'd had many inner ear problems and now in adulthood, if she got hit the right way in the head, her equilibrium would be knocked off balance. Flying at high altitude for many hours likely hadn't helped any. It was never pleasant and frequently put her down for at least a day for recovery.  
  
She ran cold water to rinse out her mouth before she went back and turned the dojo program off, grabbing her shoes and socks from the floor.  
  
"Get yer ass handed to ya?" came Creed's voice as she emerged again, still fighting the urge to gag. The room was doing a slow spin and as much as she didn't want to show weakness in front of him, the need to stop and lean against the wall was too strong. She pressed her forehead to the cool metal and prayed to melt into the floor.  
  
"Aw, c'mon, frail. The least ya could do is play the wounded gazelle over here where I can get the full effect."  
  
"Shut your mouth, Victor." Hank's voice was angry coming to her rescue. "No one wants to hear what you have to say."  
  
A low, chuckling growl carried down the hall. "Doesn't mean it don't affect the lot o' ya."  
  
Hank ignored him and turned to Rae. "Are you alright?" he asked.  
  
She waffled her hand back and forth in lieu of doing it with her head. "Took a kick to the head, it screwed me up a little." She winced and tried to pull away when he pulled a small penlight from his coat pocket and shined it in her eyes. "Geez, Hank, warn a girl first."  
  
"Checking your pupils for concussion," he explained, making a pleased little "hmm" when he found the results favorable. "If you can make it to the elevator, we'll get you upstairs and in bed. I can give you something for the nausea."  
  
"Sounds spiffy." She leaned on him, heavily, feet shuffling and refusing to move properly with her balance off-kilter. "Thanks," she said slowly.  
  
Hank patted her hand on his arm. "Never a problem, my dear. I do wish you'd be a little more careful sometimes."  
  
"Don't we both?" Speaking took too much effort so she remained silent as Hank got her upstairs, leaving her to undress while he went back down and got the promised medication. She'd crawled into bed by the time he returned and was asleep almost before he left the room again.  
  
Her dreams were a muddle of strange things, but the running theme seemed to involve a monster in the closet.


	2. Chapter 2

There were 400 ceiling tiles, all of that blasted silver material that the X-Men's little hideaway was made of, and he was sick of looking at them. They were 10 feet overhead so that he couldn't reach them even on his tiptoes and he wasn't about to do something so idiotic, but even if he had, his keen eyesight told him the joins were airtight. Even his claws wouldn't be able to wiggle between them to pry one loose, and that was assuming there was anything above them.  
  
The air conditioner ran on approximately 32 minute cycles, apparently timed instead of triggered by a drop or rise in temperature. He guessed it was about 65 degrees down here, not that it bothered him either way, he could endure sub-zero temperatures without much trouble.  
  
The so-called bed didn't bother him, either. He did miss his featherbed back home but compared to sleeping on the flat ground this was nothing.  
  
No, none of that was a problem. The boredom, though, that's what was going to kill him. He was going to go slowly insane and end up bashing his head in on the wall. Going from having the entire world as his hunting ground to a 20' by 20' cell was maddening, infuriating, degrading.  
  
Victor Creed's internal clock never failed him, which didn't do him a whole lot of good underground where he saw neither sunrise nor sunset. He never thought he'd take those things for granted, the simplicity of fresh air over recycled, natural light over harsh halogen (though at least he had the option of turning off the lights when he slept, he'd been in cells before where the lights were on 24/7), even the feel of grass and trees instead of smooth metal.  
  
Pacing had gotten old real quick, and he was sure he'd have run a rut into the ground were the floor not so durable. Punching the walls didn't make much of a difference, either, leaving only the faintest of marks behind, and the only evidence he'd done anything was damage to his knuckles which faded within seconds.  
  
Hell, even taunting anyone who came within earshot wasn't a hell of a lot of fun, and since the night before and his encounter with the Native American woman, no one else had been down. Her scent had already faded, dissolving until nothing but sterility was left. For a man who relied on his senses so much the lack of scent was truly bothersome.  
  
He knew it was morning, around nine, and his assumption was confirmed when he heard the soft rush of air heralding the arrival of the elevator on this level. He felt his mouth watering at the smell of breakfast, heavy on protein with bacon and sausage, the sweeter scent of oatmeal with honey and brown sugar just below that, then underscored with the bitterness of coffee. Tabitha Smith came into view, her blonde bob swinging with her steps.  
  
"Mornin'," she greeted rather cheerfully. She pulled open the small door on her side and set the tray of food inside on the ledge before closing it; she was safe from any attacks on his part by dint of the fact that the door on his side wouldn't open when the outer door was ajar. "Sorry I'm a little late, got waylaid by one of my teammates."  
  
With a deliberate show of nonchalance, Victor got up from his seat on the floor and made his way to the food, ignoring the girl's chatter until she mentioned being late. "Ya ain't late, it's nine."  
  
"It's eleven, actually."  
  
The shock of hearing that stopped his movement of fixing his coffee; how had he lost two hours? _I'm goin' insane_ he thought.  
  
"Uh, you okay?" Tabitha asked.  
  
The thought of showing any weakness grated on his nerves, but he had to ask. "How long I been down here?"  
  
She tucked her hair back behind her ear, the hesitation quick but noticeable to one such as him. "Two weeks. Why?"  
  
Two weeks? His brain was telling him it had only been one. Where the hell was the time going?  
  
"Uh, Creed, your hand is bleeding."  
  
He looked down where his right hand was gripping a spoon hard enough that it had cut into his skin, a neat trick for such a blunt object. He eased his grip and felt the wound heal up, leaving blood to drip down onto the floor. "Is someone messin' with my head?" he growled.  
  
"Well, the Professor's been working with you almost every day, trying to sort through your memories. Sometimes having him in your head makes you feel weird, like time's passing when it shouldn't." She shrugged. "Listen, you want some books or magazines or something? I know when there's nothing else to do that can help make it feel like you're not going crazy, gives your mind something to focus on."  
  
Victor looked up at her and pulled air in through his noise, catching more of her scent. She smelled like some fruity body wash, strong enough to make his head hurt, but he was more interested in her motives. Her scent told him she felt sorry for him and already his mind was working out ways to take advantage of that. "Could do," he agreed slowly. "Maybe a TV, too?"  
  
She cocked her head to the side. "I'll see what I can do. I can at least bring you some books when I bring your lunch."  
  
"Hey." She stopped halfway down the corridor, turning to look at him again. "How come you're the only one bringin' me food?"  
  
Tabitha shrugged. "No one else volunteered and Xavier said we can't let you starve." With that she left, disappearing into the elevator.  
  
He picked up the tray and brought it to a clear space on the floor, sitting down tailor fashion and digging in to his breakfast. He could say one thing for this captivity, they weren't trying to starve him or control him through lack of food. But that's what you got with a bunch of bleeding hearts.  
  
By the time he finished he could feel the darkest part of him surfacing again, the part he couldn't control and didn't really think he wanted to. He'd embraced his animal a long time ago and accepted his role at the top of the food chain, partially subscribing to the view that _homo sapiens superior_ were the next step in evolution while also seeing himself, a predator, as the king of the jungle so to speak. Why else would he have the ability to kill so easily? His claws and teeth were made for rending and tearing flesh and bone --  
  
 _"You've got the devil in you, boy." Blinding pain in his mouth, fingers digging into his jaw to hold him steady while his father rips out his canine teeth with pliers. "If I pull out enough, one day these Satan teeth ain't gonna come back."_  
  
Victor expected to see blood dripping down his chin, onto his shirt, but there was nothing. It was one of his earliest memories, part of his mutation being physical and manifesting very early on, and he'd killed his brother over a piece of pie. There was still a part of him that didn't understand why that was a bad thing, he was only playing with Luther and didn't mean to hurt him, but sometimes bad things happened. It was then he'd been chained in the cellar like a dog, starting him on that long, dark road to no longer viewing himself as a human being. If his own parents could call him an animal, then wasn't that what he was?  
  
Locked for a year in that cellar he'd dreamed up a lot of awful things, mostly fantasies of breaking free and going on a rampage, showing his father just what kind of animal he was. He bided his time while his body grew stronger, passing through puberty when the rest of his mutation came to fruition, leaving him with razor-sharp claws, increased strength, and a healing factor. He hadn't known about that last one until after he'd gnawed off his own hand in escaping, and then he'd had his revenge.  
  
The memory of blood and screaming was like a lullaby to him, a beautiful, comforting thing that could ease him into sleep if he thought about it long enough. He craved it, that copper scent like a new penny, and the more meaty scent of flesh, the dark, rich taste of arterial blood ... Sometimes thinking about it had the opposite effect of arousing him, making him painfully hard with the need for release, but down here there was nothing to do about it, so he pushed that down and let his eyes drift closed as he sat with his back against the wall, let the memory wash over him. It was better than going back to counting ceiling tiles.  
  
Time passed and the sound of the elevator arriving again made him think it was lunchtime, which meant Tabitha was back, but he got different scents before he saw their owners: subtle cologne and aftershave overpowering sea water and pine needles, which meant the Professor and the squaw. Hard to think of her as anything else, she was what she was.  
  
Xavier was dressed as usual in a three piece suit, gray today with a red tie that had a subtle pattern of gray diamonds. He had a tartan afghan thrown over his legs, his impeccable shoes peeking out beneath. His dark eyebrows always made him look a little startled without hair on his head to soften them.  
  
The woman was more casual in jeans that had a hole in one knee and a faded NYU hoodie, and he was slightly surprised to see she was barefoot, a slim silver ring on one of her left toes. Her hair was in a braid like the last time he'd seen her, sleek and almost but not quite black. She gave Victor slightly-bored dark brown eyes that on anyone else might make him think they were faking calm but her scent didn't betray any fear or anxiety. Apparently he hadn't rattled her as much as he'd thought.  
  
"Here fer the daily tromp through my brainpan?" Victor asked, still sitting comfortably up against the wall. He drew one knee up and draped his arm over it, adding to the casual air. He'd never admit that it actually kind of terrified him knowing someone could get into his head. "An' don't ya usually bring someone with ya that's strong enough to take me down?"  
  
Xavier managed a grim smile. "Rae is more than capable, Victor, not that you need to worry about that. Now, if you wouldn't mind behaving yourself, we'll deactivate the forcefield."  
  
Rae stepped forward and placed her palm flat against the sensor on the wall. When the computer dispassionately asked for voiceprint identification, she said, "Raina Petrova, codename Aura."  
  
"Voiceprint confirmed. Please make a selection."  
  
She pressed a few buttons and the forcefield blinked out of existence, taking with it the faintest of humming noises that was almost too soft even for Victor to hear. He watched her move back to stand beside Xavier, hands going into the front pocket of her hoodie.  
  
"Where we goin'?" Victor rose gracefully to his feet. Normally he wasn't so amenable, instead practically forcing Xavier to pin him down (so to speak) and force the mind link on him. He knew it bothered the telepath which was exactly why he did it. He hadn't been let out of his cell yet, though, and any chance at some freedom was better than nothing.  
  
Instead of answering, Xavier gestured for Victor to follow Rae, who was moving down the corridor towards the Danger Room. She stopped just outside of it and tapped something into the controls. The door slid open a moment later and the three of them trooped in.  
  
The room had been transformed into a close facsimile of the mansion's grounds, the path from the door heading into the expansive forest that backed up onto the school. Various woodland creatures, squirrels and birds and rabbits, flitted in and out of sight down that path, chattering and calling just like the real things, and it was almost enough to fool Victor. The smells were the same but it was all overlaid with the stale scent of recycled air.  
  
"Wouldn't goin' outside be just as good?"  
  
"We cannot allow you access to the outside, Victor," Charles explained in his cultured, even tones. "I have, however, decided to grant you the freedom of remaining in this holographic projection, giving you the option of roaming here instead of being cooped up inside of that cell."  
  
"Still a prison no matter how ya dress it up."  
  
Rae made a disgusted sort of noise. "It's either this or we give you to the government. Would you honestly rather be locked up in a maximum security cell at the Vault?"  
  
Victor huffed at her, smirking a little. "Ain't seein' much of a difference, either way I'm surrounded by people that hate me." Not that he cared aside from the fact that hate actually had a smell -- rancid and oily -- and it gave him a headache. He moved farther inside the projection, closed his eyes as sunlight broke through the trees and hit his face, giving him a warmth he hadn't felt in weeks.  
  
"The Vault, however, is not going to give you the chance to change your ways, or look for a way to cure you of your murderous rampages," Charles said. "But believe me, I do not intend to turn you loose on the world once we have accomplished that. You will be punished for your crimes, made to pay dearly for the lives you've taken."  
  
The feral mutant opened his eyes and snorted. "Like I'm afraid o' you, Charlie," he said, eyeing the crippled man.  
  
"You should be." There was steel underlining the Professor's words for all his tone was still even and calm. It made his blue eyes seem cold. "The killing is going to end, no matter what it takes."  
  
"We'll see."  
  
Xavier was silent a moment before gesturing for Victor to make himself comfortable. "I'd like to begin our session, Victor."  
  
He loped over to a tree and flopped down beneath it, not so much an acquiescence as just figuring it took more effort to argue than to do as asked. The grass felt real, slightly cool to the touch in the shade, as did the bark of the tree against his back, rough and sticking out at random angles, and it was all better than that cell. He couldn't deny that no matter how much he'd rather be outside, smelling fresh air and feeling actual sunlight. A rabbit caught his eye, the small creature seemingly oblivious to the humans in its territory and showing little fear, hopping within a foot of Rae.  
  
She seemed to sense where his attention was and gave him a look. "You're not here to hunt," she said.  
  
"Rae." Xavier touched her arm. They seemed to be having some kind of telepathic conversation, looking at each other but not speaking out loud, her scent spiking for a moment before she finally relaxed and nodded. "Thank you."  
  
With more grace than Victor expected, she walked to a nearby tree and grabbed onto a low branch, hauling herself up easily despite her bare feet. She settled herself, straddling the branch so that her feet hung down, her back supported by the trunk. Her eyes closed but Victor could tell she was still aware, her body gaining a slight tension that spoke of alertness.  
  
"Let's get on with it," he said to Xavier.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~  
  
 _The mindscape inside Creed's head was horrible, always the same every time Xavier found himself inside of it. The walls were the dark red of old blood and he could hear the cries of Creed's victims coming from the dark edges, flying down these corridors like a howling wraith, and if he looked hard enough he could see them. It seemed only fitting that the feral's madness was focused so much on the dead. It gave Xavier hope to know that he placed at least some value on human life, even if the value was his own use of them. That he remembered the dead at all was promising._  
  
Two weeks in, though, they weren't making much progress. The memories might be different every time he went in, jumping from experiences with Team X to visions of his first few years on his own, but they always came back to the small, dank cellar of Creed's childhood. At first Xavier had thought it was a place where he felt safe, a haven despite the horrible things that had happened to him down there. He could understand that.  
  
He came to find, though, that what this placed served as was a place when Creed truly found himself to be blameless. He'd never understood why killing his brother Luther was a bad thing, and after all he was just a kid. Weren't kids always let off easy? It would just be a slap on the wrist, a talking-to, and all would be fine. And even when that hadn't happened, when he'd been chained up, he'd refused to see the wrong in his actions.  
  
The first time that Xavier found the memory of his parents' deaths, he hadn't been able to watch. It was just too brutal, to sickening, because as it played he also felt Creed's bloodlust and sheer joy at the act, the almost loving detail with which it was remembered. Part of him felt it dishonorable to not be able to watch what was done to them, more on behalf of Creed's mother who'd done nothing to deserve such brutality than on that of Creed's father -- it was easy to see where the violence had come from, the sheer meanness and lack of regard for human life. The elder Creed was as evil as a normal human could get, taking out his anger on his family and expecting them to take it because he was head of the household, and his word was law.  
  
It didn't excuse was Victor grew into, though. Nothing could do that. And as Xavier had told him, it didn't matter whether or not they cured him of the killing lusts -- he was going to be punished for his transgressions. There was too much blood on his hands and too little remorse to do otherwise.  
  
The boy looked up from his seat in the dirt of the cellar, amber eyes glinting in the dim light. "Why ya keep comin' back here, old man?" he asked, his voice already carrying some of the tones he'd gain in adulthood. "Ain't like yer helpin' anything."  
  
Xavier knelt down, here on the astral plane where he had full control of his body. "I won't be able to help you, Victor, until you begin to accept that you want help. At the very least it will gain you a measure of control over yourself, you won't be a slave to the bloodlust that has cost so many lives. We need to break your addiction to it."  
  
"I like it."  
  
"I know, and that is what we must remedy." Each time Xavier came here there was a white rabbit hopping around as such creatures did, having been thrown down to Victor by his father; he was told he could only eat what he could catch, otherwise he didn't eat. "You obviously understand the value of human life otherwise your consciousness would not revolve around the deaths of your numerous victims. You understand that none of them deserved their fates at your hands."  
  
"Can't control it." The boy was stubborn, sticking out his chin in defiance. "It's too strong, feels like it's holdin' me down while it does what it wants."  
  
Xavier sighed, reaching out to touch the boy only to have him shrink from that touch. "And that is no longer an acceptable excuse, Victor. You insist on hanging onto that like a security blanket when you must face it and accept what you've done. Only then will the pain of the bloodlust dissipate and allow you freedom."  
  
"You're not like Birdy," the boy said, for the millionth time. The blonde telepath had taken away the pain with "the glow," a focused psi-bolt that brought Creed back under control of himself, and he had been expecting Xavier to do the same. "It'd be easier."  
  
"For you, perhaps." Xavier rose to his feet. "We will continue to do this, Victor, until you learn to live with it."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Victor opened his eyes to find Rae dropping out of her tree, crouching a moment on all fours like a cat as she caught herself gracefully before standing and going to Xavier. The old man was rubbing at his temples like he had a headache.  
  
"You may remain here until further notice," Xavier told him. "I will see you tomorrow for our next session."  
  
"Logan's coming home," Rae said, voice pitched low, but not low enough for Victor to miss as the two of them walked away. "He doesn't know about this yet and he's not gonna be happy."  
  
"I will speak to Logan and make him understand. I will not abide this idiotic grudge between the two of them, not in my house."  
  
 _Good luck with that, Charlie_ , Victor thought, a brief smile crossing his lips. When the doors closed behind them he got up and loped off, needing to explore the boundaries of his new prison.


	3. Chapter 3

The tension levels in the mansion hadn't abated much, everyone walking around like they expected Sabretooth to come jumping out of the shadows and attack them at any moment. It wasn't a completely baseless or unfounded worry, and not one of the mansion's residents could be faulted for being irritable that they felt unsafe in their own home, not when the place had been infiltrated on more than one occasion. Even knowing that Creed was locked up and being monitored at all times of the day wasn't enough to keep some of them from being skittish.  
  
Rae was exceedingly glad she wasn't a psi or in possession of enhanced senses so she avoided picking up the worst of the unease. The basic human sixth sense caught enough of it to make her feel like someone was always watching her, unseen eyes boring into her back and making the skin there want to crawl up and hide in her hair. More than once she'd caught herself releasing her pheromones to calm everyone nearby, semi-unconsciously, just to save herself the creepy feeling.  
  
On alternate days she went with Xavier for his psychic sessions, trading with Rogue and anyone else they could convince to go along. No one was eager but there were days that neither one could accompany the Professor, and he couldn't be left alone no matter how strong a telepath he was.  
  
Training with the X-Men had resumed, Creed needing to be moved back to the holding cell whenever the Danger Room was needed, and Rae threw herself back into the swing of things. The holograms reacted to her pheromones the same way that real people would but that wasn't the only skill in her arsenal: she'd been trained in martial arts and firearms by some of the best, and between Betsy, Logan, and Domino she could hold her own. She prided herself on her ability to defend herself without use of her powers, never knowing when or if they'd fail her in battle.  
  
Today the Danger Room was transformed into downtown Manhattan, a perfect replica down to the smells and the sounds. Their quarry was a group of Prime Sentinels, similar to the regular Sentinels save for the fact they were cyborgs created from real humans, made to be indistinguishable from people until a mutant in the vicinity used their gift and activated the Prime's programming. Despite their size they were almost more intimidating from their larger brethren because they weren't obvious until it was almost too late.  
  
"Rogue, fly me up there!" Rae shouted, pointing towards the roof of one of the lower buildings. She shoved her semi-automatic back into its holster under her arm and lifted her hands so that her teammate could catch her on a low fly-by, ducking and rolling when she was deposited on top of the building. Her weapon was out and back in her hand almost immediately as she sprinted to the edge to look over.  
  
Storm came flying up out of the alley shooting bolts of lightning, her eyes whited over with her elemental power and her hair floating about her face with the wind she commanded to hold her aloft. And directly behind her, lifting off the ground with the aid of a propulsion pack, was one of the Primes.  
  
Rae took aim with her gun, squeezing off a few rounds that didn't do much to deter the Sentinel, one bullet bouncing harmlessly off of the cybernetic armor and ricocheting just wide of her leg. "Shit!" she cursed, even as the Windrider took notice of the creature behind her and sent him spinning away with a mini-tornado. He slammed into the brick facing of a building and fell to the ground, down for the count.  
  
"Some help over here!" she heard the voice of Jubilee call out followed quickly by the girl's fireworks exploding, and she took off running again across the roof.  
  
Beast was running across the opposite roof but, unlike her, he could jump down harmlessly. He saw her coming and shouted, "I'll catch you!"  
  
With barely a second to worry over what could go wrong, Rae leapt and collided with him mid-air, her arms wrapping around his neck to hold on as they plummeted. He bounced off the building she'd been on and then landed as though he'd done little more than jump the last couple steps on a staircase. "Thanks," she told him, disengaging and heading towards Jubilee.  
  
The Asian girl was backed down by two of the Primes, her fireworks doing little to dissuade them from advancing.  
  
"Left!" Rae called, leaving the one on the right to Beast. She kicked out at the Prime's spine, having found they suffered some of the same weaknesses as humans. It stumbled and tried to turn and she took it in the chin with her elbow, spinning another kick to take it in the chest. The Prime caught her foot and pulled, trying to take her off-balance but she used the momentum to scissor her other leg up into its face.  
  
They both went down, Rae falling hard on her hip and growling out a curse. The Prime struggled back up and got a face full of hot lead for its troubles before her gun clicked on empty.  
  
Beast and Jubilee had taken care of the second Prime and apparently the rest of the team had succeeded because the Danger Room faded back into its familiar silver walls. Rogue and Storm powered down and landed one right after the other. Emma and Scott appeared from the left, the telepath leaning against her lover.  
  
"You okay, Emma?" Rae asked.  
  
"Just twisted my ankle, darling, nothing some ice and ibuprofin won't cure."  
  
"Good job today," Scott praised the team as they stepped out into the corridor. "I think tomorrow I might start splitting you up into teams of two and having you go in with X-Force, the kids could use the practice with the heavy hitters. I'll have a schedule and roster up in the morning."  
  
"I call Rogue!" Rae said, hooking her arm with the Southern belle's.  
  
It wasn't obvious behind his visor but Scott rolled his eyes anyway, the tilt of his head and the smirk on his lips conveying it well enough. "We'll see. Speaking of which, the two of you can take our guest back to the Danger Room, I need to get Emma into the medlab."  
  
"Can't we just Rock, Paper, Scissors for it?" Rae complained.  
  
That got a bit of a glare. "It's not a game, Rae, we need to take this seriously."  
  
Rogue gave her a squeeze. "C'mon, girl, let's get it over with. Sooner we're done the sooner we can rustle up some lunch."  
  
Rae sneered. "That's assuming I still have an appetite after dealing with him." As they rounded the bend where the cells were there was a crash, a sound like someone being electrocuted, and then the sound of a body hitting the floor.  
  
"What in tarnation --?" Rogue asked, sprinting the last couple steps with Rae on her heels. They found Creed lying on the floor of his cell, his skin and what was left of his hair smoking in his attempt to get through the forcefield. The forcefield itself was crackling a bit before it thrummed back into full power and became completely invisible again.  
  
Creed was chuckling as he rolled over onto his back, his chest heaving with the exertion.  
  
"What the hell are you trying to do?" Rae demanded, the gun from her thigh holster in her hands through sheer instinct despite the fact he could have taken the whole clip's worth of bullets without flinching. She watched him rise onto his knees, saw the rapid healing of his skin like a stop-motion picture watched at full speed. His hair would take slightly longer to grow back, not being an essential body part.  
  
"Goin' a little stir-crazy in here, frail, gotta do somethin' to pass the time."  
  
"Yer insane," Rogue told him, hands on her hips. "If ya gonna keep actin' like that, kitty-cat, we'll just leave ya in here to rot for the night."  
  
Rae lowered her weapon but kept it in her hand. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but he might end up killing himself if we leave him in here. Better to take him back to the Danger Room with the safeties on. Charles wouldn't be too happy to find out we let him hurt himself."  
  
Rogue _hmmphed_ at her but nodded her head. "Yer right, Rae. I certainly don't wanna be the one tellin' Xavier we let his pet project die."  
  
"Stop talkin' about me like I ain't here."  
  
The two women looked at him, both with raised eyebrows. Rae gave authorization for the forcefield to be lowered while Rogue positioned herself to take on anything Creed could throw at her, but he merely got to his feet and shook himself, his eyes closing for a moment as a large patch of skin on his face knit back together. "We goin' or what?" he asked.  
  
"Ho-kay then," Rae muttered, gesturing for Rogue to go on ahead. She thumbed the safety back on but kept her finger near it, holding the gun in a teacup grip slightly off to her right, and she followed Creed back down the corridor towards the Danger Room where her teammate was keying in the holographic program of the mansion's grounds. The doors slid open a moment later to reveal the verdant land.  
  
"Well, get goin'," Rogue said, shooing him inside. When he went in and the doors shut behind him, the two women shared a look. "Ya think someone should hang around the control room an' keep an eye on 'im?"  
  
Rae's answer was to hold her hand up in a fist. "Roll ya for it," she said, grinning. Her grin faltered when she lost, paper to rock. "I hate you."  
  
"Yer the one always wants to play that silly game, sugah." She patted Rae on the cheek. "I'll have Tabby bring ya some lunch."  
  
"Rassum frassum," Rae muttered. She went into the locker room for her cleaning kit before trudging up the stairs to the control room.  
  
It looked like something out of a science fiction novel, which wasn't too far off considering it was alien technology, a gift from Xavier's Shi'ar sweetheart, Empress Lilandra. Various buttons were lit up like a Christmas tree in greens and pinks and blues, showing different functions either on or off, and luckily none of them beeped except when someone pushed them. Rae pressed one now, opening the protective shield over the window that allowed her to look down on the Danger Room, though from up here it was a whole lot of trees and not much else. She couldn't see Creed at all, the feral mutant having gone into the forest as he usually did.  
  
"Where are you, kitty cat?" she asked rhetorically, flopping down in the chair at the console. Another button brought up a schematic of the room on a large screen, sensors showing her just where he was, and abruptly the scenery below changed in relation to his presence at the holographic boathouse. The whole thing was done to scale which meant he'd run several miles in just a handful of minutes, the distance from the mansion itself to Spuyten Dyvil Cove, and he wasn't even breathing hard; the sensors also gave a readout of his respiration rate and body temperature, only the latter of which was above normal but still within normal range for someone with a healing factor. She'd seen data on Logan and knew he ran hot, too.  
  
Rae cocked her head to the side and watched him stand there motionless for a few minutes, staring out over the water, at what she couldn't guess. She actually jumped a little when he finally moved. "What the --?" she asked, again rhetorically, as he pulled his shirt over his head. Her head tilted farther to the side in a complete inability to take her eyes off of him, still watching when he shucked his jeans and dove into the water.  
  
 _Why the hell am I checking out a serial killer?_ she wondered. "Celibate too long," she said out loud, quietly.  
  
"What?"  
  
She jumped and nearly fell out of the chair, spinning in her seat to find Tabitha standing in the doorway. "Jesus Christ, girl, make some noise next time."  
  
"Sorry," the young mutant said. She lifted the two trays of food she was carrying. "Miss Rogue asked me to bring you some food, and I've got Victor's food, too. I'll go take it down to him."  
  
"Um." Rae glanced back out the window where Creed had surfaced and was lazily pulling himself through the water with strong strokes. "Probably not a good idea right now, Tabby, he was acting kind of off earlier. Just set it down on the table and I'll make sure he gets it." She stripped off her gauntlets and fingerless gloves and placed them on the console.  
  
The girl did as asked but remained standing in the doorway, looking like she wanted to say something.  
  
Rae ignored her for a few moments, instead focusing on cleaning the gun under her left arm, the only one she'd used in the Danger Room scenario. She jacked the magazine out, pulled the slide to make sure the chamber was clear and the weapon was completely unloaded; Domino had stressed importance on that and hammered it into her by going on a lengthy diatribe complete with graphic explanation on what could happen if she tried to clean a loaded gun. The leader of X-Force had even jokingly suggested having Logan demonstrate just why it was bad since he could heal the damage. She'd gotten a growl for her efforts.  
  
"How long do you think he'll be here?" Tabitha finally asked.  
  
Rae shrugged, pushing off the floor so that her chair rolled over to the table where she could take her gun apart. "No clue, Tabby," she said as she dug in her kit for a clean towel that she laid out before she methodically stripped the gun. "As long as it takes for the professor to do what needs doing." She always placed the pieces so that they were in the same relative position while together, partially because that's how she'd been taught and partially because she liked being able to keep everything in order. She used another clean rag to wipe everything down and then put solvent on the parts that needed it.  
  
"Why?" she asked as she leaned back in the chair, stretching her arms over her head. "And how come you're the one who always brings his food?" She was a little worried about the answer and hoped the girl didn't have some messed up crush.  
  
Tabitha half-shrugged and kicked her toe against the floor, making a little squeaking noise when rubber contacted vinyl. "I dunno, he just -- everyone says he's this horrible killer and I think maybe he wants to get better. He came here, after all, looking for the professor, didn't he? That means he wants help, he wants to change."  
  
The older woman blinked and flexed her hands, knuckles popping like gunfire in the small room. She studied the girl a moment before answering. "Yes, he came here for help, but he's been defensive and not at all helpful in his so-called recovery. He fights Xavier at every turn." Slightly uncomfortable with the line of discussion she turned back to her gun, picking up a used toothbrush to scrub away the caked on carbon where the solvent had loosened it. "It's not something you need to worry about, Tabby, the X-Men have it under control."  
  
The girl sighed, a puff of air. "So you don't think he can be rehabilitated?"  
  
"That's up to him, little sister." It was a term Rae used affectionately towards all the younger women at the mansion, a habit from her village. "A killer can't reform unless he's willing and, so far, Victor Creed hasn't shown himself to be so. The professor won't give up on him, though."  
  
That apparently satisfied the X-Factor member as she nodded, setting her hair swinging. "Alright, I guess I'll get back upstairs, then."  
  
"Thanks for the food," Rae called as the girl left. "What the hell was that about?" she asked herself and paid her full attention to the gun. She'd take Creed's food down when she was finished.  
  
A good half hour passed in blissful silence, the act of cleaning her gun creating an almost Zen-like state of meditation in which she moved almost on auto-pilot, the motions so ingrained in her that she didn't really have to think about it. Under her breath she began humming a song her father had sung, one he'd learned from his father as a precursor to hunting, asking the blessings of the earth and the animals that would give up their lives to feed the tribe; why it should pop into her mind now, she didn't know, but she didn't let that bother her. When she was finished she replaced her gun in its holster and cleaned her hands off, then bundled everything up in one big towel and shoved it back in the bag she kept her kit in, to be disposed of or cleaned later.  
  
"Well, guess I can't wait anymore," she said, looking out the window into the Danger Room. Creed had at least put his pants back on and was sunning himself on the dock. She grabbed the tray and headed down, having to give authorization at the doors to be let inside.  
  
He didn't twitch at all, remaining motionless even when her heavy combat boots thumped on the wooden boards he lay on. She came within five feet of him and stopped, staring down at him and wishing she didn't find his body so fascinating even as her eyes ran over the muscles of his abdomen bunched because of the way he was lying. He cushioned his head with his hands behind it, and as far as she could tell, he was fully healed and his hair had grown back.  
  
"Gonna stand there all day, frail?" he asked suddenly, making her fight the urge to squeak and jump in startlement. "Figured Blondie'd be bringin' me lunch like usual."  
  
"After your little header into the forcefield earlier I figured it'd be better if someone else brought it."  
  
"Protectin' the pups, how civilized." Creed rolled onto his stomach and braced himself with his arms, looking up at her through a curtain of golden blond hair and seeming for all the world like a docile person. The illusion was ruined by the amusement in those feral amber eyes and the grin that showed his sharp incisors. "So the little squaw took her place."  
  
Once again she ignored the slur. Acknowledging it only meant he'd keep pressing that button, looking for a reaction. "I could always let you starve, I know you need to eat regular or your healing factor gets whacked out."  
  
"Yer too nice to do that."  
  
She bared her own teeth at him. "You haven't dealt much with me, I don't do the X-Men thing as often as the others. Don't underestimate me." She knelt and set the tray down, picking up her food before standing again. "Enjoy your lunch."  
  
Creed only let her get a few steps away before he spoke again. "So where's the runt?" he asked.  
  
Rae considered ignoring him before she turned and found him sitting up. His hair slid along the right side of his face, easily as long as hers where it fell to mid-back. "You know him, he marches to the beat of his own drummer. Possibly makes his own drums." She tugged her braid over her shoulder to play with the end of it, the small silver charms attached to it. "He'll be back soon enough."  
  
"Lookin' forward to it. Haven't had a good tussle in a while."  
  
She snorted. "You aren't going to be allowed to fight, Creed. Logan may not like it but he'll abide by the professor's wishes."  
  
"He's whipped, ya mean." Creed reached for the bottle of water on the tray, cracking it open and taking a long drink. "He's foolin' himself thinkin' he's a good man when deep down he's just like me. He just hasn't admitted it yet."  
  
Rae frowned at him. "Logan's a better man than you, Sabretooth, in every way that counts. Just because he takes his humanity seriously doesn't make him weaker than you. In fact, I think it makes him stronger. It enables him to have a family and friends instead of being lonely." She met his eyes, didn't look away from his intense, hard stare. "You've killed or been responsible for the deaths of everyone who's ever cared about you. How can you live with that knowledge?"  
  
A low growl made the hair on the back of her neck stand at attention but she didn't step back, didn't show any fear to him.  
  
"Ya think somehow that's gonna make me break down an' beg you losers to save me? Like I'm gonna come crawlin' to ya on my knees?"  
  
She wanted nothing more than to turn and walk out, to ignore the sneer and the derision, yet something held her back. "You make it sound like being a decent person is some kind of prison sentence, or possibly even a death sentence. Why are you so afraid of being a good man, Victor Creed?" His eyes were unreadable, fathomless. "Is it because you might fail at it?"  
  
He surged to his feet and came at her, the claws tipping each finger sliding out to their full length as he reached for her. He moved so quickly that those claws opened shallow cuts on her arm before she reacted by grabbing him by the throat and letting lose a cloud of pheromones that calmed him, made him fall to his knees in front of her. The food she'd been holding fell from her hands.  
  
"How did you -- what the hell did ya do to me?" he asked, his voice hoarse, and she could see the anger in his eyes at being put down.  
  
"I told you not to underestimate me. I don't need my guns to keep you in line." She eased back on the pheromones but let them linger in case he thought of attacking again.  
  
Creed reached up and wrapped his big hand around her wrist where she still held his throat. His skin was very warm against hers but he held her loosely, not as if he was going to hurt her. His claws slid back in until they were flush with his fingertips. "I can be anything I want."  
  
Rae quirked an eyebrow. "What do you mean by that, exactly?"  
  
"Ya said I was afraid I'd fail at tryin' to be good. I can be anything I want, ain't gotta be forced."  
  
"So you don't want to be good?" she asked.  
  
He shrugged powerful shoulders, his eyes dropping from hers. "Ain't ever been good," was his quiet reply. "Only thing I've ever been was bad, don't know if I can walk the other path."  
  
She kept the shock out of her eyes, off of her face, and resisted the insane urge to reach out and stroke his hair, offer him comfort. It was entirely possible he was just playing on her sympathies, trying to trick her into complacency or win her over, make her think he was willing to change so he could take advantage of her. For all he claimed to be an animal he was incredibly intelligent and cunning.  
  
He let her go, turned his head. "Don't know why I'm tellin' ya, won't make a bit o' difference. Y'all see me the way ya want to."  
  
"We see you the way you want us to, Creed. Just like you assume we're all bleeding hearts with visions of world peace and joy fillings our silly little heads." She flexed her hand and fought the desire to touch him again. She didn't know why it was happening and hated that lack of understanding. "You can understand that we doubt your intentions when you fight Xavier at every turn, refuse to work with him to help you control the bloodlust. Even an assurance that you want our aid would go a long way to allaying fears."  
  
Rae stooped to pick up her lunch, grateful that Tabby had kept everything packaged so the food wasn't ruined. She looked back up and Creed was still on his knees, staring down at his hands.  
  
Finally, after a long silence, he lifted his head and met her gaze. "Hard to let go o' somethin' I've had my whole life, somethin' that's been a part of me for as long as I can remember." His eyes held some unreadable emotion and he reached absently to tuck hair behind his ear. "Feels like givin' up a piece o' myself."  
  
"It's like a cancer, Creed, you need to cut it out completely or it'll kill you." She turned to go and almost made it to the doors before he spoke again.  
  
"I'll try."


	4. Chapter 4

His body was buzzing, almost like an adrenaline rush but not, his preternatural sixth sense telling him something big was coming. In his youth he'd ignored that voice, that little tickle, more often than not to his own detriment, but now he listened. He nearly hummed with anticipation.  
  
Victor wasn't sure why he'd agreed to cooperate. It had been almost a split decision, made before he realized what was happening, before the words had left his lips. Pride kept him from reneging; it sure as hell wasn't honor that kept him compliant, he wouldn't know what that particular trait was if it slapped him in the face and called him Shirley.  
  
It meant he was forced to face up to his past and he found it didn't make for easy sleeping. More often than not now in his waking hours he was restless, pacing back and forth like the caged animal he was, seeking some respite from his memories. He'd mocked Logan more than once because his past was more complete than the smaller man's, lacking the missing pieces though still replete with brainwashing, but now he cursed that very aspect of himself. Never before had his killing games bothered him, never before had he ever once stopped to think about the consequences of his actions. With Team X he'd been let loose, given free reign to do as much damage as he liked as long as he stuck to the missions and did as he was told, because they knew trying to keep him on a short leash was next to impossible. He'd just snap it and likely kill his handlers in the process.  
  
Xavier was insistent that he look at his victims in a clear light, even the ones he'd killed in self preservation were to be examined and processed because human life was valuable no matter what. It was difficult to move past that, to think of people as more than prey, and he constantly fought that urge, that need. The bloodlust refused to let him go without a fight, and he was a man who refused to be controlled; subconsciously that's why he'd sought help in the first place. Whether or not he'd wanted Xavier to give him the "glow" or kill him, he still wasn't sure, he just wanted the pain to end.  
  
He was crouched in a tree, bare feet gripping the thick branch as he tried to steady his breathing, bring himself back to something approaching levelheaded. He'd dreamed of blood, of flesh, of ripping and tearing and he'd woken up craving it. Running until his heart felt like it was going to explode out of his chest hadn't helped any, so like any good cat he'd gone up the tree.  
  
Someone was opening the doors to the Danger Room and he closed his eyes, reaching out with his senses until he caught the scent of sea water, so that he knew it was her before she came into sight.  
  
"Where the hell is he?" she asked into the utter stillness, looking everywhere but up; humans never did that, having bred that habit out of the species millennia ago. There was nothing in the trees that could hurt them and so they ignored that possibility until it came back to bite them in the ass.  
  
Victor cocked his head to the side and watched her, curious to find that she'd left her hair unbound. Every time he'd seen her thus far she'd had it braided or in a tight, neat bun. Now it fell around her shoulders like a curtain, glinting in the sun the color of fresh-turned earth with slight highlights of red and lighter shades of brown, the length ending just above her belt. His fingers itched to touch it, the urge simultaneous with that of the beast wondering what her blood tasted like, strong enough that he had to lean his head against the trunk of the tree. His talons grew and sank into the bark but barely satisfied the urge.  
  
"Creed?" Rae called, her voice holding a note of worry.  
  
He leapt from the tree when he thought he'd calmed, landing a few feet ahead of her, and he had to give her credit for not startling.  
  
"You okay?" she asked, eyeing him slightly askance. Her scent told him she was curious and a little wary but she held herself as confidently as ever. Seemed every time he saw her she was dressed relatively the same, jeans and hoodie, barefoot though this time her toes were painted silver. When she reached up to scratch at her cheek he saw her fingernails were the same color.  
  
"Mmmm." He didn't want to talk about it, was trying like hell not to even _think_ about it, but it was hard.  
  
Rae's eyebrows rose and then dropped, apparently a sign she wasn't going to pry. "Um, I brought you some books. Tabby mentioned you weren't really interested in what she brought you." She slipped the satchel off her shoulder and held it out to him.  
  
"Anything's better than _Jane Eyre_. And there was some book about vampires that sparkle." He lifted his lip in a sneer to show just what he thought of that, taking the bag from her and rooting through it. She'd brought him an eclectic mix: John Grisham, Harry Turtledove, George R. R. Martin, and even a few issues of National Geographic.  
  
"Ooh, yeah, that one's ... I don't think there's a word invented yet to describe how bad it is." She moved a few steps away but remained close, within reach of his long arms, her hands going into the pockets of her hoodie.  
  
He saw the movement from his peripheral vision and spoke as he continued to peruse the selection of reading material. "You always do that?" he asked.  
  
"Hmmm?" she said. "Do what?"  
  
"Hide yer hands." He looked up now and saw the hesitation on her face. "What, got six fingers or somethin'?"  
  
She nibbled on her lower lip as she apparently debated whether or not to give him an honest answer. "Hunting accident," she finally replied, pulling her left hand out and showing him. The pinkie finger was gone just below the top knuckle and had healed cleanly with hardly any scarring, the skin there a little paler than the light brown of the rest of her. "We found a cub caught in a bear trap, my father and grandfather pried it open while I got the cub out, and when he struggled he took a swipe at my father. The other two got their hands away but I lost part of my finger in the trap."  
  
Victor sucked in air through his teeth, something close to a sympathetic noise. "Lost my hand in one of those, once."  
  
"Least you can just shove your hand back on." She put her hand back in the pocket. "Anyway, hopefully what I brought you works, I wasn't really sure if you had a preferred genre, I mean ..." Her words trailed off and she had a look on her face like she may have said something wrong.  
  
He chuckled. "What, stone cold killer like me ain't well read? C'mon, girl, just say it, don't act like ya didn't think it." He tossed the bag on the ground and gave her his full attention. "Prefer honesty over lies."  
  
"And I'd prefer not to wake up that 'stone cold killer'. You've killed over less than an insult."  
  
His head dipped in acknowledgement of the truth of that. "Doesn't mean ya shouldn't try."  
  
"Mmmm, I'll be the judge of that. I quite like my insides right where they are." She lifted her shoulder in a shrug. "Anyway, I also wanted to tell you Xavier's gone for a few days, he got called away for something, so he won't be able to work with you until he gets back. In the meantime I guess your time is your own."  
  
He couldn't say why that last sentence bothered him, or what exactly about it had him feeling a spike of loss; more often than not it was Rae who came with the professor for their daily sessions and he'd gotten used to her presence. Something about her just being there calmed him, something that had nothing to do with what her X gene gave her the ability to do. "Guess I'll have to figure out how to get by, then. Been on my own more often than not, an' it's not like Xavier's makin' much headway with me anyway."  
  
It seemed impossible to acknowledge to himself that he might be able to get himself under control, learn to not let his darkness take him over without his consent. Talking with her had distracted him from the thoughts he'd had when she first entered the Danger Room but now, thinking about how he was going to have to keep himself in check for the unforeseen future, he felt that darkness creeping back in. It wrapped hands around his throat and tried to choke him, whispering sweet violence in his ear, telling him he was fast enough that he could take her down before she could drop him. He could have her jugular open and spurting.  
  
She took a step back from him, then another, though she froze when he lifted his head and caught her gaze. He could only imagine what she saw on his face, in his eyes, that made her go still like a rabbit in the grass, seeing the predator and hoping if she didn't move, she'd live. He drew in air through his nose, took in the scent of her fear and saw her eyes go wide at the slight movement; he could hear her heartbeat racing, and it all spoke to the animal in him. His lips drew back in a snarl and he dug his claws into the palm of his hand, hoping the pain would ground him, give the beast something to focus on beside the smooth skin of Rae's neck.  
  
With his vision narrowed down he saw her lift her hand and smelled something ... "soft" was the only word to describe it, wrapping around him, invading him. He felt it loosen his throat, ease the rush of adrenaline in him, the anticipation of the kill, until he found he could breathe more easily again.  
  
"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I didn't ... I don't like using my pheromones unless I have to."  
  
Victor shook his head, scattering his hair in his face. "Better ya did it, girl, I wasn't thinkin' anything good." It was as close to an apology as he'd get. "Ya had to."  
  
She opened her mouth to speak and ended up turning her head as the Danger Room doors hissed open, and the man standing there had fury written in his body language, on his face. "Shit."  
  
"Runt," Victor greeted the shorter feral mutant, a sneer automatically forming on his lips. Here was someone he didn't have to hold himself in check around. "Was wonderin' when ya'd come back to roost."  
  
Dark brown eyes showed murder and the desire for a fight, the rage even more evident when his claws slid out with the sound of bone scraping against bone. "Get outta here, Rae, I need to have words with this one." Logan's voice was a deeper growl than usual since the adamantium had been stripped from his skeleton, leaving him in a regressed feral state with more of a penchant for flying into a rage than before.  
  
"Oh, like you can take me, ya little punk."  
  
"No." Rae stepped between them with her hands out and made Victor chuckle at her show of concern, a small and seemingly fragile woman between two heavily-muscled ferals who'd fight given less than half a chance. That she thought she could stop them would seem insane to anyone who hadn't seen what she could do. "Logan, Charles isn't here to tell you this, but this isn't gonna happen. Creed's here under the professor's protection and you'll have to go through me to get at him."  
  
Logan snarled, baring sharp incisors like that of a wolf. "I don't wanna hurt ya," he told her, "but I will if ya don't step aside." He shifted on the balls of his feet, a stance that screamed his intentions.  
  
Victor risked touching Rae, felt her tense under his hand on her shoulder as she faced his rival. "I appreciate the gesture, babe, but ya may as well just let this run the course. This ain't gonna end until one o' us is dead." He cared nothing for himself, knew it was always going to come down to him and the Wolverine facing off, it was just the way things were. And he didn't want her to end up in the crossfire, hurt because neither one of them was going to back down. That he cared for her at all was a new and unsettling realization.  
  
The shorter feral had growled when Victor touched her, though both were surprised when she didn't shake his hand off.  
  
"Logan, please. He's here because he's trying to cure his bloodlusts, you of all people should understand and appreciate that. Even more so now that your adamantium is gone."  
  
Another growl from him, this one angry that she was a little bit right. "Don't matter, kid, this one's a killer."  
  
"So're you, point of fact." Now she did shrug Victor off, stepping closer to Logan and placing a hand on his chest. "Not the same way, I know, but this goes no further. You know I can stop you and I won't hesitate, just like you. You're the one that taught me to be ruthless after all."  
  
He glared at Victor for the space of several breaths before he stepped back and retracted his claws, clearly unhappy with the decision. "Don't know why yer protectin' him, Rae. Ya know what he's capable of."  
  
Victor heard her sigh, watched her shoulders rise and fall with the exhalation. "Yes, thank you, I'm not a complete simpleton." She turned to the blonde man. "I'll be back later with dinner, I've got some studying to do."  
  
He nodded, amicable despite the fact he didn't take his eyes off Logan. "Ya know where to find me."  
  
Rae gestured for Logan to leave with her and he fell into step beside her. His body language still spoke of barely suppressed battle lust, the need to assert his dominance over an unwelcome predator in his territory, but apparently he'd decided that discretion was the better part of valor. He stepped out through the door and just before Rae was out of sight, Victor called out after her.  
  
"Thanks for the books, Rae."  
  
She turned and gave him a look that was a cross between pleasure and exasperation. "No problem, I'll see you later."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
"Tell me what the fuck is goin' on, Rae, 'fore I decide to go back in there."  
  
Rae sighed again as she herded Logan towards the elevator. "Long story short, Creed went nuts after his son killed that blonde telepath he was running with, the one that controlled his bloodlusts for him." She punched in the number for the ground floor and leaned back against the wall, crossing her arms beneath her breasts. "Some of the team chased him to Japan, then back here because he came after Xavier, whether to kill him or seek his help is up for debate. Charles is determined to cure him of the urge to kill, to teach him the value of human life and Creed is actually beginning to accept that."  
  
Logan muttered something, pacing back and forth in the small confines of the elevator, two paces either way. "So what then, Chuck lets him go? All forgiven, he's a good boy now?"  
  
"No, actually, he gets turned over to the authorities to do penance for what he's done. Charles isn't going to release him like nothing ever happened." She frowned at him, clicking her tongue to indicate her further displeasure. "You know the professor better than that."  
  
He snorted, a dismissive rather than an amused expelling of breath. "This is fuckin' insane, is what it is. He needs to be put down like the rabid dog he is an' not be allowed to take up space, breathe air like he ain't evil. There's kids in this place and ya know he's just dreamin' about paintin' the walls with their blood."  
  
Rae exploded out of the elevator as the doors opened, her raised voice causing people to stop what they were doing, students to eschew their lessons and crowd around classroom doors in an effort to see the argument better. "For pity's sake, Logan, don't act like Charles hasn't afforded you every opportunity to turn yourself around, to keep your feral side under wraps when it tries to control you. You had people take you into their home to nurse you back to humanity, to give your life meaning and purpose, something Creed never got."  
  
Logan's eyes went a little wide at her diatribe, the mere fact she wasn't going to back down and over Creed of all people. He knew she had a wild temper that could spark easily but he'd rarely been on the receiving end of it. Before he could take a breath to respond she kept going.  
  
"I swore to Charles that I'd make sure nothing happened to Creed while he was gone, and I will not let you make a liar out of me, Logan, do you hear me? I don't even need to ask to know that I've got the backing of the rest of the team, as much as they don't like having him here, but this isn't going to happen. If that means you need to leave, then so be it, and you can take it up with Charles when he gets back." She rarely got so angry and a few months ago if someone had told her she'd reach this state over defending Sabretooth she'd have laughed in their face for being insane. But she'd made a promise and she realized she'd invested a part of herself in wanting the man to get better, to succeed at what he was trying to accomplish.  
  
"Yer serious, aren't ya?" Logan asked, narrowing his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest. "You'd tell me to leave my home before you'd let me go after him." His tone was even, neutral, like they were discussing the weather.  
  
Rae could still hear the dangerous undercurrent, knew the peril that lurked beneath his apparent ease. "I'd tell you to do as Charles asked, and if you couldn't do that, then you should leave. I know this is your home, Logan, and none of us feel completely safe having him living belowgrounds, but it's not our decision. Charles gave us a place to live and we have to abide by his wishes."  
  
A pin could have dropped and would have been deafening in the silence that followed, as Logan considered the situation and the watching students waited to see if there was going to be a brawl between teachers in the hallway. Even Emma and Betsy were hovering nearby in readiness to step in.  
  
The tension finally flowed out of Logan, his stance relaxing as his hands fell to his sides, and a grim smile turned his lips up slightly. "Kid, if you can face me down over it, I can live with it. Ya got a big, brass pair."  
  
She wasn't sure whether to laugh or scream, and the sound that came out of her was a mix of both. "I learned from the best, big brother." She flexed her hands, knuckles popping from how tight she'd been holding them in fists. "Jesus, Logan, I thought we were gonna throw down."  
  
He chuckled and slung his arm around her shoulders, pulling her in the direction of the kitchen while studiously ignoring the kids who were groaning as they were herded back into their classrooms. "Let's get some beer and you can tell me all the other crazy shit I missed while I was gone."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Victor seems a bit out of character here in his feelings for Rae, I assure you that he is capable of actually feeling something for a woman besides lust. He shows this in the mini "Mary Shelley Overdrive" where he ends up saving a woman from some assassins and he finds that he feels protective of her and maybe even something close to love.


	5. Chapter 5

Logan seemed satisfied with Rae's determination and didn't say anything about it afterwards; when Charles returned there was indeed a confrontation over it that ended in Logan storming off into the woods surrounding the school, so that in some weird twist of fate there were almost two beasts inhabiting that forest, one inside and one outside. Logan had been told that if he couldn't control his temper it was better for him to not be around the students with the potential for a blow-up, when really it was more about his inability to deal with Creed living belowgrounds.  
  
Rae tried to ignore her _sensei_ 's pigheaded stubbornness and shift her focus back onto her studies. At NYU she'd earned a dual BA in literature (with a focus on medieval and European works) and linguistics, and through the same school she was now working on a Masters in Library Science. Growing up she'd been near-obsessed with books and had been overjoyed to be turned loose in Xavier's collections when she'd come to the Institute, full of new and wonderful titles. Through him she'd earned privileges with the nearby universities and could spend hours poring over ancient tomes and translations, her polyglot upbringing affording her a knack and love for languages. In college she'd been able to study abroad in Italy and France and she found herself longing to go back there, to walk those hallowed, hushed rooms full of the musty smell of old books.  
  
She was, frustratingly, still without a thesis topic and felt like pounding her head against the wall, despite the fact she was only in her second semester. Rooming with Kitty Pryde must have rubbed off on her and gave her an overachiever's complex, because it certainly wasn't the influence of Jubilation Lee pushing her through academia. The Chinese woman was indeed brilliant but most of the time couldn't be bothered to apply herself when it came to school and had done merely average work.  
  
A quick call to her best friend in Chicago, where Kitty was working on her own Masters in Communications, gave her the suggestion of focusing on the relationship between libraries and Native American communities, something Rae was intimately familiar with and somewhat driven by. It was both broad enough and specialized enough that she could get a lot of mileage about the concept.  
  
For now, though, she had mid-terms to study for, and papers to grade as Emma's TA. As much as she disliked the White Queen's snooty attitude she had to admit she ran a tight ship and managed to get interesting essays out of her kids.  
  
Rae continued to escort Xavier on his sessions with Creed but couldn't help feeling frustration there, too, when the feral began to backslide. He complained of horrid migraines that Xavier explained were his bloodlust trying to assert itself as it had before, yet he seemed powerless to fight past them, caught in a grip so strong even he couldn't break out of it. It was the pain of that which had sent him on his rampage in the first place, seeking relief any way he could find it, whether that meant sating the compulsion or finding someone who could take him down.  
  
It was hard not to feel a little compassion for him, some sense that maybe he really _wasn't_ strong enough to break free. He'd said he was willing, had shown progress up until this point, but now when he spoke it was only of death and killing, of what he wanted to do and what he saw when he closed his eyes. It was never anything different.  
  
Xavier was obviously growing despondent that his plans of rehabilitation were proving pointless. Daily violent outbursts had landed Creed back in the cell he'd originally been in in order to keep him more closely contained, and no one wanted to go down there anymore, not even Tabitha. Rae was the only one who would, partly because she felt she owed it to him because he'd told her he'd try, and partly because he seemed to calm at least a little at her presence.  
  
She sat out on the back veranda with two of her schoolbooks, moving back and forth between them when her interest in one began to wane, and she would have continued like that if she hadn't been interrupted by Scott coming out looking harried.  
  
"What's up?" she asked, getting to her feet in automatic response.  
  
"Can you come downstairs?" he asked. "Creed's not responding to anyone else, not even Xavier, and he seems to have gone insane."  
  
Rae immediately picked up her books and followed, wondering exactly what she'd find in the subbasement, expecting blood at the very least.  
  
She heard him before she saw him, that same thick sound of something hitting the forcefield and bouncing off, the forcefield itself crackling and whining. Almost as soon as she heard the first hit she heard the second.  
  
"What the hell?" she asked, picking up her pace. She found Creed struggling to his feet, looking like a burn victim with most of the skin gone on his face to show muscle and sinew and, in a few places, stark bone peeking out from his injuries. Most of his hair was gone and what little was left of his clothing was gone in the front, smoking from contact with the forcefield.  
  
She watched as he charged it again, a look of grim determination on his freakish face, but he made no sound beyond a grunt as he hit.  
  
"That's enough of this," she said. "Open the field, Scott, I'll handle it." She set her books down on the floor and prepared herself.  
  
Her leader didn't question her, instead trusting in her judgment and training that she could do what she said. His palmprint and voice ID brought the field down just as Creed was preparing for another run.  
  
Rae lifted her hands and released her pheromones, a calming wave of them to wrap him up and bring his madness to a halt. He lifted his head and breathed deep through lips and nostrils almost entirely gone, his breath coming out with a ragged growl as he turned insane eyes on her.  
  
She pushed harder and watched the light dawn slowly, the bloodlust recede bit by bit until some part of the man was looking back at her. She watched him swallow and flinch at the damage to his body.  
  
"Are you done?" she asked, hands still held out in case she needed to hit him again.  
  
He gave another grunt, then a nod, but didn't speak. She wasn't sure if he'd be able to form a coherent sentence anyway.  
  
"How long was he at this?" she asked, turning her head to look at Scott without letting Creed out of sight.  
  
"I honestly don't know, I came down to take care of some mission files and he already looked like hamburger. Betsy gave it a go after Charles, trying to get into his head, but he was keeping them both out, and Emma wouldn't even think about it. The only thing I could think of was your pheromones and hoping that would be enough."  
  
She shook her head and sighed, looking back at the feral who was now crouched down, one mangled hand pressed palm-down on the floor to hold himself up. "I guess we should just be glad it wasn't Logan who found him or he'd be in chunks. As it is this'll just be incentive to get rid of him."  
  
Scott put the field back up and stepped away from the keypad. "Can you blame him?" he asked, gesturing at Creed who, for now, seemed content to just sit there. "What little progress that was made just got set back by weeks if not months. I just can't see how Charles expects to cure him when he can barely get through to him. He said it was like coming up against a brick wall of blood and screaming, his face was absolutely white after he tried to get in."  
  
Together they went back up to the main level, going to Xavier's office and finding Ororo and Betsy there along with Remy and Rogue.  
  
"I see we are not the only ones concerned," Ororo said, nodding to them in greeting. "There is nothing more frightening than knowing that he is down there trying to escape."  
  
"Are we so sure he's trying to escape?" Rae asked. Six pairs of eyes turned to her, only one set unreadable but she'd known Scott long enough to gauge his emotions based on other factors. His brow was furrowed and his head was tilted just so.  
  
"What do you mean?" Charles asked.  
  
Rae shrugged and crossed the room, taking a seat on the loveseat by the open window. She could smell roses and hyacinths from the nearby gardens. "Even after he started regressing and was still in the Danger Room, he never tried to escape there, not even when we moved him back and forth so the teams could train. He wasn't exactly pleasant as to his choice of conversational topics but there were no active escape attempts."  
  
"What else could it possibly be?" Betsy asked, her accent clipping her words at the end. She always sounded impatient. "He's made it quite clear he'd rather not be here."  
  
"That was before he agreed to help." Rae fiddled with a pen in her pocket and prepared to make an unpopular observation. "I think he's suicidal."  
  
"What?" Rogue burst out. "If that's true why don't he just slit his own throat?"  
  
"He's got a healing factor, Rogue, he can't exactly go about it by conventional means." Rae didn't mean it to sound so bitingly sarcastic.  
  
Remy clucked his tongue. "It do make a strange sorta sense, _chere_. He be smart enough t' know what it would take t' get his body t' the point it can' take no more." He ignored the glare from the object of his affections.  
  
Xavier picked up the thread. "He could very well be overloading his healing factor to the point a more 'conventional' method, as Rae put it, would work. We know from experience that there are definite limits which would result in death if they were to be crossed." He steepled his fingers under his chin. "This is indeed troubling and I confess I find myself at a crossroads: do I continue to work with him, or do I give up and let him be incarcerated without being cured of the bloodlust?"  
  
"I vote lock his ass up an' throw away the key," Rogue said, holding up a gloved hand. "He don't deserve one lick o' our help if he's just gonna let it get this bad without tryin'. He obviously don't want it that bad."  
  
"The same could be said for the man currently living in the woods behind the school," Rae interjected, "and I've said as much before. We give up on Creed and we're nothing but hypocrites."  
  
"The difference is that Creed don't care!" Rogue shifted so that she stood over her teammate, hands balling into fists. "He kills 'cause he likes it, 'cause it feels good. Logan's got honor and a sense o' right an' wrong."  
  
"Because somewhere along the way he was given a chance to learn those skills," Charles said. "I have seen into Creed's head, Rogue, there was no time in his childhood in which he was taught consequences for his actions that were not merely more violence, more blood, and we must remember that."  
  
Rogue snorted derisively. "That's like sayin' we shoulda let Hitler off easy 'cause his mama didn't love 'im enough."  
  
The professor raised an eyebrow, the only sign he wasn't feeling the calm he outwardly presented. "And again I reiterate that I have never planned on letting Victor go once he was cured. Whether or not he feels remorse he will pay for his crimes. I am merely telling you why there is a difference between these two feral mutants and why comparing them is a moot point."  
  
"Y'all are insane, I hope ya realize that." Rogue turned and went out the door.  
  
"Let her go," Xavier said when Remy made to go after her. "She will not see reason any more than Logan will."  
  
"Can you blame her?" Ororo asked. "We have a killer locked up beneath our school, under a haven for children, and I find myself increasingly concerned for their safety. Something must be done, Charles, because even if his goal may not be to escape, he could very well harm one of them in an attempt to take his own life."  
  
"That I'll agree with," Rae said. "He's not responding to telepathy, the only thing that even calms him down is my pheromones and today I had to push more on him than I have in the past just to get him to back off. It might get to the point that won't work anymore and then we're royally screwed."  
  
Xavier nodded, placing his fingers against his lips for a moment. "Give me a few hours to think on it. I may ask for more input but I will certainly let you all know by the end of the day what I believe needs to be done."  
  
The team scattered then, going in several separate directions. Rae watched Remy move with purpose to find Rogue and thought about doing the same, going to her friend, but that would just spark another pointless argument. They couldn't -- wouldn't -- see eye to eye on this any time soon.  
  
Working out didn't seem appealing, and she wasn't hungry, so she decided to go veg out in front of the TV for a while. The rec room was already occupied by members of X-Force but luckily someone with some taste had gotten control of the remote so instead of being stuck watching something like _Survivor_ , _M*A*S*H_ was playing. It was like some universal language that crossed age boundaries.  
  
Halfway through a fourth episode, the one where Hawkeye suffered a concussion following a jeep crash and he spent an entire afternoon monologuing to a Korean family, she realized she'd left her books down in the sub-basement outside Creed's cell. It wasn't a pressing need to get them and this was one of her favorite episodes so she waited until the show was over to go back down.  
  
Almost immediately she heard the telltale sounds of a brawl, the impact of bodies and the unmistakable sound of flesh being torn, underscored by growling as if two beasts were hell-bent on taking each other down. The worst possible thing that could have happened had begun in the time between her remembering her books and deciding she could wait, and she muttered curses.  
  
Creed flew down the corridor, sliding once he hit the floor almost all the way to where Rae stood outside the elevator, but just as soon as he came to a stop he was back up, charging an enraged Logan who met him with six razor-sharp bone claws. They hacked and slashed at each other with mindless savagery, taunting breathlessly to trip the other up, circling and moving with a deadly grace that was beautiful in its own way. Blood splatters covered the wall the length of the corridor, turned into footprints on the floor, and both men were dripping with it but without wounds to attest. There was no way to know how long they'd been at it, but she could tell that Creed was wearing down; Logan's healing factor had proven to be much stronger when he'd lost his adamantium and he showed no signs of fatigue.  
  
"Stop!" Rae shouted, knowing full well it wouldn't do much good. Her pheromones wouldn't do anything the farther away they got from her and she wasn't sure it was safe to get close enough in any event, not without some other weapon. The risk was too great with two ferals who likely wouldn't care if she stood in their way; they'd cut her down to keep going, though at least Logan would grieve afterwards.  
  
"Goddammit," she said, going to the comm system on the wall outside the elevator. "Codename: Aura, emergency authorization gamma charlie echo, send to all X-Men. Get your asses down here, stat!" She sent the call and turned back to watch, and she saw that it was likely too late.  
  
They were both moving more slowly, which gave Creed time to snarl out threats. "When I'm done with you," he said, grinning, "I'm gonna go after all them frails ya seem to collect like puppies. Jubilee first, then Kitty, might have to make a special trip up to Canada just fer that Hudson bitch." He snapped his teeth at Logan. "I'll save the squaw for last, just 'cause I think she's pretty an' I can't pass up a piece o' tail like that. But she'll be dead all the same."  
  
Rae felt her blood run cold at that, at the casual offhandedness of the comment about raping and killing her. Had she been so wrong about him after all? Or was this what he was losing the fight against, a biological imperative to destroy everything he laid eyes on?  
  
Logan let loose a terrible shout that was almost like a howl. "That's it, bub, ya just stepped over the line. Do what ya want with me but ya harm one hair on any o' their heads and I've got all the reason I need to put ya down."  
  
"Ooh, did I strike a nerve?" Creed chuckled. "Seems yer just as much an animal as I am, Runt."  
  
"I'm fed up with doin' what Chuck wants, with holdin' back the wild part o' me--"  
  
"Then quit yappin' an' do it!" Creed yelled.  
  
Rae felt paralyzed on the spot, watching Logan raise his hand and shove his fist beneath Creed's jaw, retracting the middle claw and leaving just the outside claws to frame the bigger man's face. She could have gotten closer now but she was rooted, unable to do anything except watch.  
  
"Ya punkin' out on me, shortie?" Creed demanded. "Ya pull this half-assed shit out in the jungle an' that's all she wrote. I ain't lyin' -- you let me walk an' I swear, I'll track down every livin' thing you ever cared about one way or the other -- Kitty Pryde ... Jubilee ... Rae ... Ororo ... An' I'll make 'em suffer a good long time before I kill 'em. Unless ya got the guts to give me that last big glow." His voice was ragged now, not just with rage but some deeper, darker thing.  
  
"DO IT!" he shouted. "JUST FUCKIN' DO IT ALR--"  
  
"Logan, no!" Rae cried out as Logan released that third, middle claw, watched it pierce up through the top of Creed's head.  
  
Creed howled in pain, eyes gone huge and unseeing, and as Logan let him go and sheathed his claws he slid down the wall he'd been pressed up against.  
  
Rae ran forward, finally released from the spell that had held her in place. "Did you kill him?" she asked, looking back and forth between the two. She could see the blood on Logan's hands from the fight, bright red where it was fresh and a dark brown where it had begun to dry. She pushed her teammate back.  
  
"I doubt it," was the growling, nearly-unintelligible answer, though it was clear he didn't care. Anything else he might have said was drowned out as voices filled the hallway, the rest of the team finally coming down to avert a crisis that had already occurred.  
  
Hank appeared beside her, dropping to a crouch so he could check Creed's neck for a pulse. "He's still alive," he said, "but barely. Between his self-inflicted injuries earlier and this fight with our Canadian teammate his healing factor was taxed beyond normal." He looked up and growled a curse. "I can handle his upper body if you can take one leg. Scott, some help here, please? Of course Rogue couldn't possibly be around when I need her strength."  
  
Between the three of them they struggled to lift the heavy mutant, though luckily the medlab was nearby and they got him hoisted him up onto one of the diagnostic beds. Rae hopped up onto another bed to catch her breath and watch the proceedings, looking away only when the professor arrived.  
  
"What happened?" he asked.  
  
"They were already at it when I got down here," Rae reported automatically. "Seemed Creed was still recovering from earlier, his hair and skin had grown back but gods only know what kind of internal damage he'd done." She grimaced. "I'm sorry I didn't stop them, Charles --"  
  
"Could you get close enough to them?" he interrupted.  
  
"No, but --"  
  
This time the interruption came in the form of his hand on her arm. "You should not apologize that you didn't risk your life; those two can heal, you can't. Continue."  
  
Rae nodded and did as asked, now looking over at the feral mutant whose body was almost completely obscured by the panel that had slid out from under the bed, a medical scanner to let Hank see inside.  
  
"They fought hard and I think Creed knew they were coming up on the end. He started saying some pretty horrible things, how he was going to hunt down and kill everyone Logan loved -- all of us females -- and make sure we suffered while he did it. I couldn't tell if he was talking shit or if it was the bloodlust, but either way, Logan decided he'd had enough of it. He put a claw through Creed's head and that ended it."  
  
Xavier nodded as he took the information in, his own attention engaged partway between her and the patient. "There will likely be brain damage, then, if he does not perish from the wounds he sustained."  
  
"Indeed," Hank put in, overhearing this last bit. He was moving around the bed, administering various treatments as he spoke, ever efficient. "Ossial fragmentation, the sinuses have collapsed, the force with which that claw went through was enough to create arterial rupturing in both hemispheres, and that is merely the physical damage. As you can see here," he said, tapping a screen, "he's experienced the equivalent of a lobotomy through the medial temporal lobe, as well as damage to the hippocampus."  
  
Xavier sighed. "Without his healing factor I think it's safe to say he would not have survived. Is he stabilized, Henry?"  
  
Hank nodded. "He is, Charles. I will keep you informed of any changes."  
  
"Is it alright if I stay?" Rae asked. She couldn't say what it was that made her want to stick around.  
  
"I may find need of your powers, Rae, I would be happy to have you remain."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Logan and Victor's dialogue during their fight at the end is adapted from Wolverine vol. 2 #90.


	6. Chapter 6

He woke slowly and with great effort, his eyes gritty and his body generally feeling ... wrong. As he surfaced he tried to move and found that he couldn't, his limbs secured to whatever surface he was lying on, and his first reaction was to fight against his restraints. He'd come to in similar situations in the past and it was always his first instinct to attempt escape; often enough, being tied down meant something bad was going to happen to him, or something bad already had happened, but either way he knew it was nothing good, and he needed to get away before anything worse happened.  
  
A nearby beeping sound sped up in cadence the harder he fought and then, just as quickly, the panic subsided as a distantly familiar scent filled his nose. He blinked and focused on the figure standing at his side: a woman with raven-dark hair in two braids was holding a hand up, palm facing him. Her warm, dark brown eyes met his and he seemed to recall looking into them before, but as quick as the thought came, it vanished.  
  
"It's alright," she reassured him, her voice low and soothing. "You're in no danger here."  
  
"Where am I?" he asked, finding he could turn his head freely, at least. The surroundings were also vaguely familiar but he wasn't quite sure why. "Who are you?"  
  
A frown appeared on her brow. "You don't know?"  
  
"Would I be askin' if I did?"  
  
"You're safe, and I'm a ... friend." She glanced at something behind him. "I'll be right back, you just ... be easy."  
  
There wasn't much he could do but comply, though he did continue to try to test his restraints in a more quiet and controlled fashion. Another female voice, along with the Native American woman's, spoke from out of eyesight. They were making an effort to be quiet but his enhanced hearing picked it up as if they were right beside him.  
  
"Bets, what are you getting?" she asked. "I can't tell if he's putting me on or not; I have trouble with ferals."  
  
There was a pause before the second woman spoke, her words clipped and very British. "So far as I can tell he is being truthful, there is no deception in him. Hank and Charles told us to expect this even in a best-case scenario, that he'd have any kind of cognitive function at all. Be that as it may, though, I'd feel immensely better were Charles and Emma to have a peek before we even think about removing his restraints."  
  
"Call them down here then, would you?"  
  
He relaxed again when she reappeared. "What's the last thing you remember?" she asked.  
  
"I --" he began, then he blinked. "Nothin'," he finally finished, feeling panic rise up again at the knowledge that, well, he had no knowledge.  
  
"Not even your name?"  
  
"Victor Creed." That much he knew, at least. "Who are you?"  
  
She gave him a small smile. "Raina. Rae, actually, is the name you know me by."  
  
"Where am I?"  
  
The smile faded as her lower lip folded under to be worried between her teeth before she answered. "It might take a while to explain, Victor. There are a couple people who need to talk to you first and then, I promise, I'll tell you what I can."  
  
Her scent was one he knew instinctively was honest.  
  
Within a few minutes two more people entered the room, a blonde woman who looked like a supermodel and a bald man in a wheelchair, and again both of them were familiar but the memory was just out of reach. He actually flinched when the man's eyes met his.  
  
"This is Emma and Charles," Rae told him, placing a calming hand on his arm. "They're telepaths and they need to take a quick look in your mind to make sure you're okay. You had a head injury and they just need to see if there's any lasting damage."  
  
Again, there was little he could do but comply, though he watched with wariness as the other two approached. Something told him not to trust them but, for some reason, he trusted Rae and if she trusted the telepaths, he'd take her at her word.  
  
"Just close your eyes and relax," Charles said, reaching out to place a hand on Victor's forehead.  
  
He felt the lightest brush against what he assumed was his mind, like a butterfly touching down on a flower, and his eyes drifted shut at the strange intrusion. He could sense Charles in his head the way he could smell the man's cologne, the scent mixing with Emma's perfume into something nauseating that he had to fight to ignore.  
  
An indeterminate amount of time passed before he felt that foreign presence pull away and leave him with his own thoughts.  
  
"So?" Rae asked.  
  
Charles made a gesture that was sort of a shrug. "It appears that his former personality has either been repressed or destroyed as a result of the physical trauma. I believe that, so long as he agrees to wear some sort of monitoring device, we can allow him a certain amount of freedom."  
  
"Would ya quit talkin' about me like I'm simple?" Victor growled, glaring at him. "Why do I need to be monitored?"  
  
The other man glanced at Rae before answering. "I will let Raina explain that." Abruptly he left, taking Emma with him.  
  
"Are you okay with this?" Rae asked, holding up what looked like a slim metal bracelet. "It won't hurt you unless you try to leave the grounds or tamper with it."  
  
"Do I have a choice?"  
  
Her eyes became somewhat blank. "Of course you do. Unfortunately it's either this or we place you in our holding cell."  
  
"Ain't much of a choice." He sighed. "Fine. If it means not bein' caged I guess I can live with it."  
  
She offered him a small smile and released his left arm, placing the bracelet around his wrist when he lifted it, and then she undid the rest of his restraints.  
  
"Are you hungry at all?"  
  
Victor shook out his limbs and flexed his hands, glancing down at his new accessory for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders and rolled his head to stretch out his neck. "Yeah, I guess so. Dunno when the last time I ate was." As he followed her out of what appeared to be some kind of medical facility he took in his surroundings, noting the stark, metallic walls and floor, thought again that he should recognize this and felt unease creeping back in. "What is this place?"  
  
"A school, primarily," Rae replied, leading the way to an elevator. She keyed in a code and stepped back to lean against the wall inside. "A haven for mutants, like us, to learn how to live with our abilities. The lower level is our medbay and some training rooms." Again her scent came back to him as honest but something niggled at the back of his brain, telling him she'd left out some information.  
  
The elevator came to a halt, the doors opening into a richly appointed foyer where the scents were less sterile and more... alive. "Upstairs is everything else, classrooms, dormitories, rec rooms ... pretty much everything we need." She moved ahead of him on bare feet, her toes painted emerald green. "We can get some food and go outside, I'm sure you'd like it more than being cooped up in here."  
  
He didn't respond, instead continuing to observe and catalogue, taking in scents both familiar and strange, but he really would feel better being outside. He had no way of knowing how long he'd been confined save for some vague feeling that it had been longer than he prefered and he knew that being outdoors was where he belonged.  
  
Pacing the spacious kitchen while Rae gathered something to eat he thought more of his predicament, looking down at the bracelet on  his wrist with a passing thought to how much it might hurt just to have complete freedom. But he didn't know why he was here, or why he couldn't remember a flaming thing, and cooperating meant that he might get some answers.  
  
"C'mon, it's this way," she said, leading the way once again. A doorway at the far end of the kitchen took them out onto a wide patio done in brick, wrought iron chairs surrounding a table of the same with a glass top, an open umbrella situated above to create shade.  
  
Victor made a beeline for the steps leading down to grass, the urge to feel it beneath his bare feet stronger than he could resist.  
  
Rae gave a small, soft laugh behind him that made him turn to her a moment.  
  
“What?” he asked, brow furrowed.  
  
She shrugged. “You remind me of a very happy cat basking in the sun,” she replied, coming down the steps to sit beside him. She placed the food between them on a tray, seemingly at ease even though he could read a slight tension in her, a kind of wary alertness.  
  
Victor found that he was ravenous and quickly devoured three roast beef sandwiches before Rae offered to make a few more. She’d eaten one herself with a bit more decorum.  
  
While she was gone he closed his eyes, taking in scents and sounds, trying to separate what he knew from what he didn’t. It wasn’t easy and the harder he pushed the more his head began to hurt, the ache spreading into his neck and shoulders.  
  
“You okay?” Rae asked when she returned, handing him the tray. She drank from a bottle of Pepsi, watching him.  
  
“As well as I can be, I guess.” He shrugged. “Tryin’ to remember and comin’ up with nothin’. Kinda pisses me off.”  
  
He saw more than heard her sigh, the exhale lowering her shoulders. “Ya can’t tell me what happened, can ya?”  
  
She shook her head. “Not yet, at least. As I told you, you suffered a brain injury, and we’re still not completely sure how it’s going to affect you or even if you’re out of the woods yet.” She looked down, away from him. “I am sorry for that, Victor.”  
  
He could smell the truth of her words, let that ease some of the frustration, but tension remained in his muscles. He looked down at his hands, large with long fingers tipped by wicked talons; he flexed them, felt the distant urge to use them, do something, anything to ease the unbearable feeling of wrongness clawing at the back of his throat.  
  
Rae made a small, displeased sort of sound, her eyes locked on something in the trees that backed up to the mansion.  
  
He turned his own attention in that direction, felt his hackles rise when he caught a maddeningly-familiar scent. A low growl trickled out, his claws lengthening.  
  
She touched his arm tentatively. “I'll be right back,” she said, rising on bare feet. “Please, stay here.”  
  
He wanted to ignore her but he still felt so off, so out of sorts, that he wasn't sure what good would come of it. He watched her go, kept track of her even after she disappeared into the trees by the faint sounds of her footfalls, so quiet that even he could barely hear them. A growl made his ears prick up and he could just make out a conversation.  
  
“Why'd ya bring him out here?” asked a male voice, the one that had growled.  
  
“Are we having this conversation again? Because it's not going to end any differently,” Rae replied, frustration and anger clear in her tone. "You decided it would be better for you to live out here, in the woods and out in the boathouse. He's wearing a monitoring bracelet even he couldn't remove without nearly killing himself."  
  
"Fine, but why's he out here?"  
  
Rae sighed. "Because this isn't fucking Gitmo, Logan, and you don't own the outdoors. Go back to the boathouse if you can't stand him being out here for a few minutes."  
  
"If I didn't like ya so much--"  
  
"Done talking. We'll be going back inside shortly." Under the sound of her footsteps Victor could hear the man laugh, harsh and bitter, but he didn't say anything else and he didn't emerge from the trees with Rae.  
  
She offered Victor a smile as she came back. "Sorry about that. I know you heard it, so I'll tell you this: please don't go into the woods without someone, preferably me. Logan would just as soon kill you as look at you and I don't want to have to kick his ass for it."  
  
"Logan is... he hates me." It felt right to say that, he knew it for truth. "Pretty sure I hate him, too."  
  
"You've known each other a very long time," Rae said. "I don't know how much more I can tell you without consequences. Maybe..." She sighed, shoulders slumping. "Just so you know, I hate this, I really do. I don't agree that you shouldn't know the truth, but I'm mature enough I can admit that I don't know the wisest course of action."  
  
Her head jerked up, eyes wide when he reached out to touch her arm, her gaze moving from his hand back up to his face. He wasn’t sure if that was because he’d never touched her in the past, or because maybe he’d touched her in a different way. "It's alright," he told her. "Just tell me what ya can, when ya can. I'll try to live with it."  
  
She opened her mouth, closed it, then chewed on her bottom lip. "Okay, I guess that works for now," she finally agreed. "In keeping with the theme of the day, I'm supposed to give you some ground rules."  
  
"Shoot."  
  
Her hands worked at peeling the wrapper off her soda bottle while she spoke. "Okay. You'll be staying in one of the uninhabited wings of the school, for your safety and that of others. I'll be living in that wing, too, if you need anything." The wrapper came off in pieces, reduced further by her fingers, and he could read the nervousness in that.  
  
"Others aren't happy with you being here, so it'd be best if you kept to yourself as much as possible. Don't respond if you're baited, just walk away, find me or Charles. We'll do our best to defuse the situation."  
  
It sounded like a really, really shitty way to live, but what other choice did he have? He didn't know anything, really, beyond his own name and a few other bits and pieces. Where else would he go? What else could he do?  
  
"I'll do my best, I guess," he offered when she finished.  
  
"That's all I can ask of you." She gave him a small smile as she gathered up the bits of wrapper, shoving them inside the empty bottle. In doing so, he saw the injury to her finger and memory flared to life again.  
  
"Hunting accident, right?" he asked.  
  
"Yeah." She didn't hesitate in showing him the shortened finger, though he seemed to remember she'd been a bit slower in showing him in the past. Goddamned fucked up memory. "Let me know when you'd like to go back inside."  
  
He wanted to say "Never" but he knew that wouldn't happen, so he soaked up as much sun as he could before following her in, carrying the tray to put in the kitchen.  
  
Rae took him down a flight of stairs, the temperature dropping a few degrees as he realized they were partially underground. "I'm here," she said, pointing to one door, "and you're here." His door was to the left of hers.  
  
The room she showed him to wasn't exactly spacious but neither was it stingy, with a queen sized bed taking up a good portion of one wall. A small dresser and matching desk took up another wall with a TV on the dresser, and directly across from the door was a pair of French doors opening onto a small terrace, bearing out his observation that they were partially underground.  
  
"There's a bathroom," she said, pointing to a third door, "just a shower, no tub. There's toiletries, I got you unscented stuff so you don't go crazy."  
  
There was surprise, he found, that anyone would even care that much. Not sure how he felt about that, though, he didn't say anything but, "Thanks."   
  
"Oh, almost forgot." She dug into her pocket, produced a cellphone. "I'm on 1 on the speed dial. If you need me and I'm not nearby, call or text. I'm around most of the time except for a few hours during the week when I'm in class in town."  
  
Victor frowned at her. "Class? What're you in school for?"  
  
She seemed a little surprised, now, that he'd asked. "Masters in Library Science. I've already got my bachelors in literature and linguistics. I’m in the middle of thesis work and seminars, with more or less an internship as librarian of this school.” A small, almost shy quirked her lips. “Not that it’s a huge job or anything, but it’s experience.”  
  
He nodded, unsure how to respond.  
  
Rae glanced at the watch on her right wrist. “Dinner’s at six, I’ll bring you something. I can get you some books, too, if what’s on TV doesn’t suit. A billion channels and half the time it’s all shit, it’s either reruns of  Mythbusters or yet another cake decorating marathon, or some moron claiming that humans didn’t build the pyramids, ‘aliens did it’.” She blinked, then said, “And now I’m babbling so I’m going to shut up.”  
  
He wasn’t going to complain if she wanted to keep talking, honestly. “Can I check out the library after dinner?” he asked.  
  
She nodded. “Sure, that’s safe. Not like anyone but me ever goes in there voluntarily. See you around six, then?”  
  
“Yeah.” With that, she left, and he was alone with his thoughts. He wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than being caged.


End file.
